Maybe it is a problem with water or harvesting, but catches are falling

RUSKIN — - Gus Muench coaxed a galvanized wire trap out of the Little Manatee River, hoping to find a few blue-clawed beauties clattering inside.

"Nothin' that catch," he said, stuffing fresh bait into the cage. He let it tumble back into the brown-green water.

Muench, 72, has been crabbing for 32 years. Never has the blue crab catch been this bad.

"I lose money every time I go out," he said, pointing out that he spent $80 on gas and bait to trap about 50 blue crabs, or about $60 worth. "But I go out anyway, thinking I'm going to do better."

He has not.

Crabbers and restaurant owners say this is the worst blue crab season they have seen in years. The crabs are not taking the bait and local restaurants are not able to offer the azure-colored delicacy for diners' plates.

Why? There is the theory that crab populations can be cyclical. There is the overfishing idea. But one of the most prevalent theories involves fresh water -- or the lack thereof.

Although blue crabs are born in salty water, they need a mix of salty and fresh to grow and thrive. Therein lies the problem. Because of the area's water woes -- this year has been unusually dry -- there is less fresh water flowing in the area's rivers, which feed estuaries, bodies of water that provide the perfect salty-fresh mix for blue crabs.

"Generally, where they're happy is in fresher parts of an estuary. So when you have a drought, you're not getting as much water coming down the rivers," said crustacean biologist Anne McMillen-Jackson of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. "A lot of the crabs are moving up the rivers, which takes them out of their normal fishing areas."

From 2006 to 2007, crabbers reported to Fish and Wildlife a 13.5 percent dip in Gulf Coast landings. The numbers for 2008 have not yet been recorded, but anecdotally, the agency expects another dip, McMillen-Jackson said.

The decline in local crabs has led many fishermen to drive miles out of their way to find the crabs, a signature dish for many local restaurants.

Mark Davis, 46, who owns the Crab Hut, a wholesale and retail fish distribution store on Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, drives to the St. Johns River near Jacksonville. He started doing so last month, when the crabs just could not be found in the Alafia River or in Clearwater, where he normally lays traps.

He pulled up all 100-plus traps and drove north.

"I was running 130 traps and getting 100 pounds of crabs, which is terrible," Davis said.

"I said, 'I had enough of this.'" In Jacksonville, he ran 240 traps and got 600 pounds. Big difference.

Longtime crabbers have experienced dips in the crab population before. In 2000 and 2001, a time of record drought in the area, the industry went through similar woes. About that time, Travis Johnson, owner of 40th Street Seafood, hooked up with distributors in Louisiana and started getting the blue crabs flown in from there.

He is doing that again now.

"We have local crabbers that are really, really having a rough time,"

Johnson said. "My two crabbers, I told them to take off for a couple of weeks until the crabs pick up."

For those crabbers who do travel, even if their bounty is bigger up north, it does not mean that their profit margin is any wider. The culprit: gasoline.

Davis, owner of the Crab Hut, drives two trucks hauling two boats up to Jacksonville, at a cost of $230 round trip. The gas to fuel the boats costs $175.

It is either pay up for the gas to travel or get no crabs at all.

"We just happen to have a bad year the same year as gas prices went real high," Davis said. "So it's kind of like a double insult."

Davis and crabbers like him are the crucial link between getting blue crabs, which weigh about a quarter-pound apiece, out of the water and onto diners' plates. Most restaurants sell them by the dozen. When these guys cannot get crabs out of the water, local restaurants suffer.

Every day, someone calls the Crab Shack in St. Petersburg to ask about blue crabs. Every day, manager Tyrone Dayhoff tells them no.

The Gandy Boulevard restaurant, which specializes in crab, keeps the blue crab option on the menu, just in case a local fisherman brings in a box or even half a box, which will last only half a day at the popular restaurant.

"We're trying every day with no success," Dayhoff said.

A fisherman last month brought in half a box, about 60 pounds, to the restaurant. Before that, it had been two months before the restaurant received any blue crabs. Before that, it was a month and a half, he said.

"We're hoping that maybe in the fall, maybe they'll run again," he said.

"For right now, it doesn't look good."

Still, crabbers continue to hope for a better catch. They love the lifestyle -- being out on the water, being their own boss, watching sunsets and strutting egrets, and seeing the crabs scramble in the cages.

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